


The New Girl

by Medie



Category: Terminator, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Genre: Crossover, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-13
Updated: 2011-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-14 18:08:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/152020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She looks familiar. And that's not good.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The New Girl

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xphoenixrising](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=xphoenixrising).



The new girl shows up on a Thursday, but that's not the weird part. Transfers happen all the time, but none of them show up with an official Air Force escort—armed, though discreetly—on the same day a new teacher with a suspiciously FBI-issued car starts.

She's pretty, with red hair that shines in the afternoon light, and John's maybe, _maybe_ a little attracted, but definitely confused.

She looks familiar.

And that's not good.

Not even close to good.

-

He doesn't tell anyone. It's a mistake and he knows it is. After Riley, he knows that it's a mistake and how bad it can go. Whether she's connected to Skynet or the Resistance, doesn't matter, the end result will be the same.

Him dead. Derek dead. His mother. Any, or all, of the above.

-

Her name's Kate. Kate Brewster. It doesn't take school gossip long at all to give him that. Less than a minute in the lunch hall actually. He sits down, hunched over bad tuna, and listens to the girls behind him.

"Anyway, that's not the weird part," one's saying, her voice a hushed stage whisper that's not even in the same universe as quiet.

"No?" the other asks, eager. "Why?"

"It's totally X-Files! She was like kidnapped or something. Just disappeared on her way home from school like _eight years ago_." The girl giggles. "And the best part? She's the same age."

" _What_?" her friend squeals. "You're totally lying, right? There's no way that's possible!"

"I know! But it is. Dad saw her file. Her dad's like a general or something so the whole missing thing is like totally classified and shit, but it's true. She was sixteen when she disappeared and she was sixteen when she showed up. The file said she was even wearing the same clothes as the day she disappeared."

John sits quiet, shoulders slumped and casual, but his heart starts to pound. An eight year jump in time.

His eyes flick sideways, tracking the already-familiar Kate as she walks into the lunch room.

Eight years.

Shit.

-

He's gotten used to a lot of creepy shit in his time. Had to. It's kind of par for the course. So, when he walks in on his Terminator-bodyguard beating the hell out of another apparent Terminator, he kind of just goes with it.

Which is, to say, he tries to duck and run— Cameron's totally got it covered—when the other Terminator spots him and stops cold.

Cold with her hand around Cameron's throat.

"John Connor," she says, voice light, kind of friendly. Yeah, that's not creepy at all.

He starts edging backward. "Yeah, got me. So, uh, if you're planning on trying to kill—"

"That is not my assigned mission here," she replies. "To harm John Conner would be counter-intuitive to it."

Cameron's eyes narrow. "You are -- "

"Michael," the Terminator says. "General Connor assigned me to protect Katherine Brewster."

"I KNEW IT!" John yelps.

Michael looks at him. "You will have no contact with her."

"What?"

"Your proximity to Katherine Brewster is a mistake," she says. "We cannot permit you to have contact. Skynet is actively searching for you both, but you have engaged in activities which has alerted it to your location."

John grins, casting a look Cameron's way. "I think she means we made it mad."

"You do have a talent for that," Michael says, attempting to fix her blouse. It doesn't work. She still looks like she went ten rounds with a semi. Points to Cameron. "Which is why my instructions are clear. I can allow no harm to befall Katherine Brewster, even if it involves you." She seems to think better and says, "Especially if it involves you."

-

"Who is she?" John asks of Cameron the second they leave the room. "Kate, I mean." He's already trying to figure out what model Michael is. Her model and how the hell they're going to tell his mother about this. "If I brought her forward in time—" and apparently hadn't bothered to warn her first. "What makes her that important?"

"She is the second-in-command of the Resistance," Cameron says. No, she says it reluctantly. Definitely reluctantly.

"That's it?" Somehow, he can't shake the feeling it isn't.

Cameron looks confused, then adds, "She worked with you in reprogramming the Terminators, you said she was instrumental in the process."

It's a good enough reason. He'll definitely need the help. The thing is, he's pretty sure Cameron's not telling the whole story and that's a problem.

-

Derek disappears. After they finish explaining things to his mother, John turns to him and finds him gone. Facing empty air with his question unspoken, he goes after him. This is a question he can't go without an answer to.

"You know who she is, don't you?"

Derek half-grins. "Everyone knows who she is, John. The whole damn world knows Kate's name." He looks at him. "It's usually said in the same breath as yours."

"Yeah, but there's more there, right?" he sits down, watching Derek watch the sky. It's hard to forget Derek's description of Judgment Day. Of looking up and seeing the missiles overhead. "There has to be."

"There always is," Derek replies. He pulls his gaze from the horizon and looks at John. "She's like one of the few people in the world who doesn't look at you and see the Second Coming." His eyes warm with amusement, maybe something a little more reverent. "The first time someone sees her ripping you a new one? It's special. They get this look on their face, like they can't believe it's happening. Somebody just called the great John Connor a dirty name and got away with it. Like lightning's going to smash through the ceiling and wipe her off the face of the earth."

He looks over and must see something in John's face. "You don't believe it?"

"No," John says, "I do, it's just—" he grins a little. "I'm having trouble picturing it. This is the first time anyone's ever mentioned her. It's kind of—weird."

"Kate's sacred territory," Derek says. "Most of your inner circle is, but her especially. Nobody's ever going to take the chance of her falling into Skynet hands. Not if we can stop it. I'm guessing that's why he had her moved too." He pauses, then shakes his head. "Man, she's going to tear him a new one when she remembers this."

John gulps.

-

His mother's pretty quiet on the issue. That's not exactly a shock, but something changes in her eyes.

"Talked to Derek, didn't you?" he asks over Cheerios and toast.

She looks up from sandwiches, her hands keeping up the motion of making them easily. Not for the first time, he feels a flash of guilt. Those hands should be doing more than making sandwiches and cleaning guns. Sarah Connor deserves more than being a footnote in history.

He knows it's not that easy, that most people never even rate that, but it doesn't stop the guilt. Everything he's supposed to be, she made him.

Never did seem right that he's supposed to be the great hero when it's been her all along.

"About?" she asks, bringing him back to the conversation at hand.

"Kate. You've been kind of freaky quiet on that front."

"Maybe," she says, smiling a little. "It's just good to know."

"That someone'll be around to keep me in line?"

His mother's smile sobers. "To keep you human."

-

"She's more than just my second, isn't she?"

Derek doesn't answer.

He doesn't need to.

-

It hits him just before school. The realization of just where and when he met Kate Brewster for the first time.

That he _has_ met her before.

"What?" his mother asks, pouring herself a cup of coffee.

"Kate." Stealing the mug, John grins. "I remember her. We went to school together. I made out with her at a party." He starts to say 'right before Bob showed up' but stops himself.

This is probably not the moment to be bringing up the whole 'liquid metal, assume any shape, be anybody' Terminators. It just seems like a conversation to be had when you're trying to pin down where you met the hot redhead you're crushing on. The hot redhead you're crushing on who you kidnapped. Will kidnap.

Through time.

It occurs to John, yet again, that his life is really, really fucked up.

And that's ignoring the killer robots running around.

-

"I'm not supposed to be talking to you," John confides, leaning against the wall. "Your FBI friend doesn't like it." He bites the inside of his cheek, wondering just how much of all this Kate knows, and how much they're going to have to explain.

Because they are going to explain. She deserves that much.

Laughing, Kate shoulders her bag. "I have a feeling you've never been big on that."

"Talking to you?" He flashes back to being a awkward teenager, barely, and equally awkward kisses in a closet.

Kate rolls her eyes. "Doing what you're supposed to."

John laughs. "Not really, no."

She leans forward. "Me either. Something else we have in common."

"Something else?"

Another laugh. "Fumbling first kisses." Her eyes fix on his lips and John swallows. "Think you've improved since then?" She turns around, heading for her next class, leaving him staring after her in shock.

He doesn't know, but he'd like to find out.


End file.
